Excessive fee litigation is increasing at a steady pace and all signs are it will continue to increase. The positive side of this situation is that we now have more caselaw to consider as we work toward compliance in creating a “best defense

Investment refresh is an optional extension to automatic enrollment whereby participants would be notified that, as of a certain date, their current investment allocation will be transferred to the plan’s qualified default investment alternative (“QDIA”) investment. The QDIA is frequently an age/risk appropriate target date fund (“TDF”). Any participant may opt out of this action prior to or at any time after the transfer date.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This saying is universal, and certainly applies to fiduciary responsibility. Beginning the year with an eye towards avoiding some of the most common errors makes sense. Most fiduciary errors are unintentional or even well meaning. Here are some examples.

Private equity funds invest in privately held companies whose stock is not traded on public exchanges. Private equity fund managers expect to increase the value of their investments by providing capital and acumen for the purpose of improving performance/value of these companies.

Plan Sponsors should understand that terminated employees who left their account balance in your plan, are still considered participants under ERISA. As such, they have the same rights as current employees. They cannot contribute to their account under the plan but otherwise they have the same ERISA protected rights as plan participants.

There are three immediate ways to take advantage of opportunities created by these changes for the 2020 tax year, and to mitigate the effect of potential tax hikes under the new administration

The primary purpose of a committee charter is to document overall plan governance. It is not dissimilar to how your Investment Policy Statement (IPS) acts as a “roadmap” for managing your plan investments.